Register of big game animals
Colorado
Some states have went to registering big game on line. I think that would be an easy great way of really getting an accurate count of our actual harvest and could help the DOW get better or more information etc.
The advantage of all hunters having a platform is that along with the success report space could be allotted for remarks and observations. That doesn't seem to happen on the random reports we now sometimes get. For instance The last few years I have been seeing an over abundance of mountain lions where I hunt, and have watched the deer population dwindle. are they aware of it. No trophy deer especially.
A physical registration? No thanks. Already have too many regulations and mandates in my life.
An online report would be fine but I don't have faith the info gained will be used for improvement.
At the last CPW Sportsperson Roundtable, that same suggestion came up ie, mandatory game game check in. CPW staff presented the way Colorado now does it with random after season surveys and compared with other states who do mandatory surveys and or online surveys or physical checks. The results were similar with the same amount of hunters not reporting or reporting as the other states. The cost of mandatory big game harvests surveys, for deer and elk, seems to be expensive with additional staff, etc.
Take it for what it is, but the CPW does not see any reason to change their "check in " system. my best, Paul
Staff concluded that the Colorado system is as accurate, give or take, as other states.
"Staff concluded that the Colorado system is CHEAPER then other states."
Always cracks me up when CPW tries to claim their random sampling is as accurate as mandatory reporting. NM really knocks this outta the park if you don't report you can't apply for next year's draw simple as that. If a guy can buy his small game license and apply for the draw online he can take a extra 5-10 minutes to do a mandatory report on last year's tags. But because this doesn’t create a new source of revenue and may even cost a little to enact there's no chance cpw will do it. Accurate data and conservation aren't as important as revenue cpw has made that abundantly clear.
According to the NM Parks and Wildlife Dept, only 79% of hunters did the mandatory reporting for elk, ie, private and public lands, ;last year. From the CPW report, no system is totally accurate.
Nys had a mandatory reporting over the phone. Making it so you cant apply until you report the previous year seems really easy to do.
I mentioned this at the last local meeting I was at and was told that there wasn't a system that could handle the amount of data that would come in. Or at least the current cpw system could not handle any more data. ???
The biologist said that he would love to have hard data but also said he can get it "pretty close" with the current system.
I don't see what the big deal would be to simply grab your phone and say "hey guys I got one". I don't think there's anyone that doesn't tell a buddy or someone else that they were successful on some platform or another. It wouldn't be that difficult, the cpw just doesn't see the need for it. Seems they'd rather guess, if they knew exact numbers they might loose thier job.
Can't imagine better data would hurt them at all...
Missouri has a telecheck and online deer/turkey check in, seems like a very accurate way to get harvest info. A telecheck ID# is given which is required to be written on the carcass tag. It takes 3 minutes to complete.
Accurate reporting would call into question some of their strategies for tag allocations and so-called "management". In the draw unit I hunt, the supposed success rate varies wildly from year to year, yet I have NEVER seen a CPW WCO checking camps or hunters.
One season when the success rate spiked way up, the former, now retired WCO who did actively check camps and hunters told me he had no idea where those numbers came from, since he only checked one elk in an archery camp all season, and that turned out to be an illegal spike.
